Practical hand book adaptive management Strategies and options for the water sector in South Africa under climate change

Expanded Title:

This project was initiated as a result of, among others disparities in water availability and access to water
experienced by many of the country’s people, and since these could well be amplified by climate change. Other
factors that were taken into account were that South Africa is characterised by a highly variable climate added to
an already stressed water situation and an imperfect governance system. It became clear that projected
amplification of the effects of climate variability and climate change on hydrological responses requires
enhancement of the ability to respond to change. The authors maintain that adaptation and hence adaptive
capacity call for the ability of responsiveness as well as a continual uptake of new information into decision making
processes in order to evaluate the negative effects and potential benefits from climate change. Hence the
predictive scenarios, indicating risk levels, for the biophysical changes associated with projected climatic change
for climatically divergent catchments in South Africa were then developed under this project. The sensitivity and
adaptive capacity of current socioeconomic activities to the biophysical changes associated with the projected
climatic change were evaluated and quantified. While the likely socio-economic impacts resulting from biophysical
changes associated with the projected climatic change were assessed by accounting for socioeconomic resilience
and adaptive capacity to climate change. Also under this project, appropriate policy responses and mitigation
strategies to assist communities in adapting to climatic change are proposed.